TV Forum

Joshua Jackson says Fringe S5 is 'going to be a big family reunion'

It seems the start of Fringe's final season will be a familiar scene for viewers—just not in the way you might think. So how long does it take us to get to the future?

With work on the fifth season of Fox's Fringe ramping up, the cast and crew have opened up about what we can expect from the future war with the Observers. Turns out we won't have to wait long to get back to the future we saw in the season-four episode "Letters of Transit"—because that's exactly where season five kicks off, with what remains of Fringe Division getting off a train in future-Earth, about to meet up with Anna Torv's Olivia.

As co-star Joshua Jackson put it to TV Guide:

"It's going to be a big family reunion. It takes on a slightly different flavor than I think you would anticipate. It happens quite quickly off the top of the season and it's as emotional as you would imagine, but not quite the reunion that you're expecting."

Though we're jumping headlong into the world of 2036, producer J.H. Wyman said the years in between will not be forgotten. In fact, those missing events will inform quite a lot of the story:

"What happened? How did they get in amber? The day the Observers arrived, what did it look like? How did Olivia and Peter and everyone get separated? Why were they all together? Why was Bell there? The history will surprise you when you realize there's a lot of emotions going on for reasons that you don't know yet, but you will."

As for the big finale, Wyman said he wants it to be both open-ended and final—admittedly not an easy task, but we're definitely curious to see where the Fringe team stands after the war:

"I want to feel that my questions are answered, but I feel like the characters that I love meet an end that they deserve that makes me feel good and makes me feel like, 'Wow, I've really been through something and now I understand what it was all about. On the other side of it, it also makes me want to feel like the next day when I get into my car, I want to feel like I can still imagine what they're doing. I can imagine there's a future and they are somewhere. That was my biggest thing."